Acciacina
by Measured
Summary: A beautiful flower for a beautiful girl, it was all very fitting, he thought. Hawk/Lise in two parts.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Acciacina (1)  
Series: Seiken Densetsu 3  
Character/Pairing: Hawk/Lise  
Rating: PG?  
A/N: 18th - Seiken Densetsu 3, Hawk/anyone: restoration - making the desert bloom again. This is written in reverse, with the prequel being the first time the flower came up.

**.**

He visits her sometimes. The trip is not that long of one, and a thief as skilled as him can make it in a night. He knows where to find her at any given time, which has often lead the question, given almost affectionately _Are you a shadow?_. Everything with her stops just short of being actually affectionate. He is the one who starts the displays – kisses, touches in the dark. She has two children he visits on occasion. Both his, so very obviously so. The amazons are a remarkably non-prudish lot about children out of wedlock. He supposes that has a lot to do with being a mostly female society. It's a breath of fresh air, and one of the first things shared by Navarre. (As opposed to the people from Wendel, who would probably faint. They were all such sticks in the mud.)

He visits them too. To them, he is a wanderer, a strange and funny man who occasionally brings them things and does tricks for them, but not a father. They are excited to see him, his girl, his boy. She showed surprising intuition when naming them, even if she never asked. The boy's name was Eagle. The girl? Accacina, the name of the flower that bloomed in the desert. The first gift he gave her, the first time he'd seen her smile.

Lise never reprimands him for this, even with her eyes, silently. Many Amazon children were raised without fathers. She was one of the few who actually had one, as opposed to a name casually given with no face to accompany it.

He ruled his domain, she hers. He doesn't marry even when pressed. (Jessica has long moved on to some adoring other man. He hopes she's happy.)

One day, another Eagle will take the throne. Bastard sons are common rulers in Navarre ( In fact, the word for _bastard_ holds a connotation more along the line of of a grudging endearment, like 'loveable rouge'. It always causes some confusion when anyone from Navarre comes across, meaning more than once a group of thieves raised their glasses to 'the bastard', not realizing how grave an insult it could be.)

She knows this and raises both well. A future Amazon, a future thief king. He is a juggler, a wielder of knives, a fire player, a gift bringer, and a secret lover of Lise, but not a father.

Peace is almost assured between them, even with the old wounds. There is no path to revenge, no call for blood to blood to be released in the time honored rituals of revenge. Only shadows and a brush of wind, two children so obviously his, and a marriage in everything but name.

Somewhere in Navarre, the Acciacina blooms again with no war or bloodshed to uproot it.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Acciacina (2)  
Series: Seiken Densetsu 3  
Character/Pairing: Hawk/Lise  
Rating: PG at most? It's quite tame.  
Author's note: - Seiken Densetsu 3, Hawk/Lise: displays of affection - flowers in the desert. By the way, the flower is a mix of a Moonflower and Gardena, while the name derived from an Acacia.

**.**

Lise was the most stoic girl he'd ever met, and Hawk had met a lot of women. Hawk was used to making girls relax right on into his bed. He was a master at it, really, and to receive such blank faces in spite of his best works might as well have been a verbal challenge pointed right at his honor as a Navarre thief.. He'd never seen her laugh much, being as guarded and reserved as she was. This only made eliciting bliss in her all that more alluring a prospect.

And that was why he'd made it his personal goal (after redemption, saving Jessica and well, t_he world_) to get her to crack through all that seriousness and loosen up. It was practically a Navarre creed to 'cheer up one's compatriot in any means possible'. Hawk had always taken it to heart. His personal motto was there was always a reason to laugh, even if the world was crumbling. Laughing was winning over a cruel world and refusing to be pushed down no matter how much it hurt.

Even if he'd lost his closest friend and his former girlfriend wasn't speaking to him because everyone thought he'd killed said friend, Hawk still found reason for mirth. He laughed because he was laughing for two people now. For every joke Eagle would never hear, or never scoff at but secretly find amusing. For every breath Eagle was denied, Hawk would have to live for him.

She, however seemed to have closed up after her hurt. He'd hadn't pulled the entirety of it from her, for he knew the quiet, the solemn lack of mirth in her told lots more than what she'd detailed in stark terms.

So he chipped away at that resolve, with little results. He told jokes, flirted with her, even kissed her. Still she was as cold as the day he'd met her.

It came to him when they were near Navarre, the desert sands beneath him, that no woman could withstand the power of an Acciacina and not be pleased. While Carlie and Lise slept, Hawk slipped out, past monsters and through the cold night to an oasis. There was a high chance that the Acciacina wouldn't be blooming in all this war. Negative energy sapped their energy, making a rare flower even more rare. But Hawk had always trusted in his luck before, and it hadn't let him down yet. He slipped past the town, to a place so pure that even the war

The flower was as delicate and filmy as moonlight, its fragrance sweet, and breathtaking. It was the kind of flower that made even the legends seem hardly exaggerations, for it really was just that beautiful.

A beautiful flower for a beautiful girl, it was all very fitting, he thought. The trip back was unremarkable, he was almost bored evading the slow monsters, made even slower by the dark.

When he arrived, Carlie was still asleep while Lise was wide awake. She pressed her three-tonged spear to his chest. She still had some issues with trust, mostly since they'd fought the shadow clones. And that he'd disappeared while in Navarre probably wasn't too comforting to someone whose country had been invaded by Navarre.

"Where were you?" She said. She was terse, a little jumpy. Maybe he'd not been as quiet as he thought when he was leaving. Or she'd simply woken up to find him gone. She wasn't a very deep sleeper.

"Can't a guy go use the bushes without being impaled on a lovely lady's spear?"

"You were gone for over an hour."

"Well, I'd hoped for a better scene to tell you– put your spear down, will you? I told you, we're on the same side. I'm not going to betray you."

She lowered her spear and looked at him warily.

"Actually, I went to go get this."

He withdrew the Acciacina from his bag. It'd only been somewhat crumpled from travel as he always traveled light. All the more room to add things he'd gained here and there, most from other people's pockets.

"It's for you. You see, these are rare. You have to go through a whole desert to get them and they only bloom one night a year. I took a chance that this would be the night and luck was with me."

It was white as the veils of the women of the desert, and just as filmy. The scent was intoxicating, and could be made to a potent opiate if somehow one were able to get a hundred Acciacina blooms and refined them to dust. Or so the legends went.

"It's called Acciacina."

"Acciacina..." she repeated, her eyes riveted to the flower.

She accepted it and breathed in the scent.

"You went all that way..just for a flower for me?" she said.

"I wanted to see a bit of mirth, since even the best of my tricks haven't even made a dent on you."

"I'm sorry for mistrusting you... it's just... Thank you, Hawk."

And for the first time, there it was, even more beautiful than the flower: a smile. Rarer, more precious than water in the desert. This was the first step to something unknown between them.

"Don't feel bad. We've all been a bit jumpy lately. We'll find your brother for sure. So...lighten up once in a while! It'll make things easier for you."

"I'll try," she said.

And he thought then, with the scent of Acciacina heady and maybe making him crazy, that he'd do anything to make her smile again. She was beautiful unsmiling, but a little happiness and it was like the sun coming out after years of winter.

It was something he swore to himself that he'd make happen again, no matter what it took.

**///**


End file.
